Final Countdown

This second verse of Europe's old poodle rock anthem The Final Countdown started to puzzle me:

> We're headin' for Venus (Venus)

> And still we stand tall

> 'Cause maybe they've seen us

> And welcome us all, yeah

> With so many light years to go

> And things to be found (to be found)

> I'm sure that we all miss her so

It makes very little sense to me, still I have heard it so many times and not reacted until now. Let's pick it apart:

> We're headin' for Venus (Venus)

But why? What is there to see or do there. A notoriously hostile atmosphere consisting of very hot carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid does not sound very tempting at all.

> And still we stand tall

Yeah whatever.

> 'Cause maybe they've seen us

This is probably the reason why Joey Tempest picked Venus. For the sake of rhyme.

> And welcome us all, yeah

Yeah whatever.

> With so many light years to go

Now this is the really tricky line. I see two possibilities:

1. They are fictively starting out from a nearby solar system but for some reason chose Venus over both Earth and Mars.

2. They did a slight miscalculation when measuring the distance between our planet and Venus, a distance most conveniently measured in light minutes.

I find the latter most believable.

> And things to be found (to be found)

> I'm sure that we all miss her so

Yeah whatever. x2

Just needed to get this out of my system.